so we forget what is love
by Shiluette
Summary: Prequel to 'but we do not know love' and 'and we pretend this is love.' A funeral and a revelation. But in the end it does not matter because neither will save them. Future Atoryo.


Prequel to: _but we do not know love, and we pretend this is love _

Stories in order:

so we forget what is love

and we pretend this is love

but we do not know love

or we perish with love

000

Keigo holds Ryoma's hand. It is clammy and cold and Nanjiroh's death is encrusted inside those bones. But Keigo holds it tight and vows he will not let go.

000

When did you first love the boy, Yuushi asked him.

That was a night of fog, which later cleared. He does not remember, perhaps because drinks had its free rein with him and he was tired from the ordeal he had gone through. Nanjiroh had not died with the dignity of a private individual nor the fanfare a loved celebrity—the reporters swarmed the gates, their hard eyes softened with a fake smile. _Our condolences_, they first say, and they ask the questions. _Nanjiroh, did he ever regret his quiet retreat? Did he ever think what if? Did he ever_—and they look at the son, the boy, a man in façade, and their voices die down: here is the son whose existence had marred Nanjiroh's future: a future that could have made Japan great, whose abilities could have shaped Japan's pride. Their smiles grow shaper and the voices are softer now. _You must be Nanjiroh's son_, they say, with stunted breaths.

Sometimes, Keigo forgets how cold Ryoma can be. He has only seen the side of a Ryoma who scowls when Keigo flicks the brim of his cap, who is resigned to the coddles and teasing that Keigo bestows upon him, the smirk when he is playing tennis, the occasional laugh that comes after. He had seen a brief flash of annoyance that comes into his eyes when they fight. But he has not encountered his frigid composure.

For that was what Ryoma was: a fragile boy who buried his father and who must now hold his guard against the sharks. They are looking for old murk to dig up in the face of a dead man and care not for the dead soul.

_I am_, the boy says, and that is all he says. His eyes are hard and shine of gold, the light that comes from the fire within him.

It is winter. Ryoma is fragile under the bulk of a coat he had enwrapped himself upon, and now he leads the proceedings of his father, his head bowed, and the reporters click away, and one bold, stops Ryoma after the formal burial has ended.

"What does Nanjiroh's legacy mean to you?" he says, and it is with a curious detachment now. Keigo hears the question, and is disgusted.

What does a legacy contain? The reporter would have liked Ryoma to cry and admit that it weighs onto him, the guilt that his father had not achieved anything in his lifetime, that he chose to be a doting father than a star; he could have been great but became normal instead.

Ryoma, of course, does none of those things. He gives the reporter a cold smile that falters even Keigo, and replies, "I was not aware he had a legacy."

000

Later, they are alone.

"I want to burn the net," Ryoma speaks. His voice is still edged with a coldness that is hard to fend off, but inside there exists tiredness as well. An age-old tiredness that enwraps him, that cannot be fended off by sleep.

"The net?"

"The tennis net. By the…" Ryoma stops for a brief pause, but completes his words, "By the temple."

"The neighbors will talk," Keigo observes. The smoke would be clear on a cloudless night like this, and they might call the cops or the firefighters. They will smell the smoke in this quiet little neighborhood and wonder.

"Fuck the neighbors," Ryoma snaps, with such vengeance, that Keigo stares at him for a moment. "They'll talk whether we do shit or not."

"If you say so," Keigo says, after a brief silence, and helps him unhook the net and roll it into a neat bundle of hooks and strings. They work in silence and Keigo's fingers grow red and raw from the cold, but he rolls his side of the net and does not complain. Ryoma does not lift his head during the task.

"Where should we put it?" Keigo finally asks, once they are done.

"Here," Ryoma says. His voice had dropped into a mere whisper and sounds strangled. "In the middle of the court, here." He drops his burden and Keigo does the same. They look at the neat bundle, and Keigo studies Ryoma: his dry eyes and lips, and how he is about to fall over, crumble beneath the earth.

"I have a brother, you know," Ryoma says, suddenly, out of the blue, "Did you know?"

Keigo wonders what answer he should give, nor where this is leading them. "No," he says, "I didn't."

"I thought he'd show up. Even though, I guess that was stupid." Ryoma laughs and his breath comes out in a white steam. "He wouldn't have known, would he?" The last words are directed more to himself than anything. Keigo keeps silent.

Ryoma shifts, and suddenly, he looks old. No, Keigo amends, that's not right. Keigo remembers a twelve-year-old Ryoma Echizen who had been stunted by the Child God, a Echizen who had floundered for a minute before opening the heights of tennis. But, before he had reached the pinnacle, he had seen an abyss of loss etched on the young boy's face.

Such is the face he wears now and he takes one more look at the net.

"We should burn the rackets too," he says, and adds, "Wait here." And Keigo, who is not used to hearing orders, obeys.

000

First is the racket in middle school: once a hard, shiny red, it has now cracked and the grip tape is worn and faded and loose. Ryoma strokes the frame, caked with dirt that had long dried out, brittle, and he lets his fingers trace over the wires, and finally, he curls his hand around the handle once more. He stares a minute longer, and then, when Keigo thinks he would not, he places the racket carefully on top of the net.

"Our match seems so long ago," he murmurs, and Keigo does not know if this is another monologue.

But Ryoma turns to him, and although his eyes had not softened, and although his weariness has not abated, he gives Keigo a small smirk, looking for all the world haggard. "I wish you kept your hair then," he says, and Keigo allows a small smile to crawl into his features as well, and he is sure it looks likes a grimace.

"Don't be cruel," he says calmly, and hands him his next racket, a black one. Keigo had never seen him play with this particular one: it was a year when their paths had not crossed, not yet. Ryoma barely glances at this one, and his grip is cursory as he flings it carelessly next to the red one.

"No love lost?"

Ryoma's lips curve wider, but it is a haunting look, pale. "No," he echoes, and laughs. "No, you bastard. You know that. We didn't win that year."

"Winning isn't everything."

"Isn't it?" The curve drops and the gaze hardens. Keigo almost wishes he could retract a sentiment that is false to his own standings (after all, what is the point, if one did not win?) but now it is too late. "You don't think so."

"No," Keigo agrees reluctantly, after a pause, "No, I suppose I don't."

"But my old man did." Again, the quiet voice is contemplating, muttering; the tiredness comes in waves, and his voice is hushed and cracked. It carries with the wind. "Somehow, he didn't really care about winning."

"You sound resentful."

This time, Ryoma flicks his eyes at him, surprised. "I guess," he says slowly, and repeats the words. "Yeah, I guess I resented him for that."

They don't speak after that, not until he carried out his two others, the spares and finally, his current on, the one that would have carried Seigaku for his Nationals for his final year before university. Ryoma grips the handle tightly: for this one, he is clearly reluctant. _He does not want to do this_, Keigo thinks, and he says, "This can only be symbolic. You don't have to."

"I do," Ryoma returns, weary, "I do."

Without a father that symbolizes too much, far too much, it is a burden that comes with shadows. Ryoma surveys the rackets and Keigo brings out the match. He looks behind. "We should bring newspapers," he says.

"Yeah," Ryoma says, but he doesn't move. In the end, Keigo sighs and retrieves them from the house, thinking that crying and shouting would be better than this, whatever rite they were playing at. He wishes that Ryoma was physical sometimes, that he would seek out warmth instead of words that seep and dissolve in the air. Words for Ryoma are foolish and folly.

He hates that blank look.

When he returns, Ryoma is still standing in his position, and it is up to Keigo to dump the newspapers and the odd scraps of paper in the house and opens the matchbox.

But then Ryoma says, "Here," and gives him a lighter.

Keigo gives Ryoma a look. "I didn't know you smoked."

"I don't," Ryoma says, curt, "I took it out of my old man's robes."

Slowly, Keigo nods. He flicks the lighter and sets fire to the paper, and soon they burn but at first it is a feeble burn. He wonders if it would even catch fire, but after a brief respite from the wind, it catches the bundle of newspapers ablaze, and the first racket is devoured by the flame in small licks.

Until now, he did not even know that Ryoma wanted to quit tennis. But now is not the time to ask. This is a funeral, and he knows his manners well enough to not don himself as a reporter like those fools and pursue his whims. He is merely there in presence. It does not matter, he tells himself, but he cannot help but feel a small hollow hole carve inside his ribs when the first red racket is fully engulfed, and he fists his hands inside his coat.

"Would you miss it?" Ryoma asks, and Keigo starts.

"I suppose," he answers, and hesitates. "Miss what?"

Ryoma shrugs. His own hands are buried inside his coat pockets as well, and he shifts his foot from side to side. "Everything," he says carelessly, "Me playing tennis. Or you, even though you should have given it up long ago."

"Are you calling my tennis unworthy of pursuing?" he cannot help but snipe, and for that Ryoma gives him a sharp grin.

"Obviously," he drawls, and adds, before Keigo can open his mouth in indignation, "You'll still have to keep it up, I guess. Tennis is a gentleman's sport, after all."

"I'm surprised you know that," Keigo says, after a beat has gone, "But, naturally, those people wouldn't know how to serve a ball for all their fortunes."

Ryoma laughs, a small, harsh bark. "Naturally." He looks at the flames again, and then looks back at Keigo. The smile is gone abruptly, wiped out without a trace. The same blank look shadows over him.

"I don't how to do this," Ryoma says, and he looks lost and Keigo feels lost looking at him. "What should I do, Keigo?"

Keigo stares at the boy who had once been a little brat and now is a taller one, who had never called him by name save for the times in sarcasm or wheedling, and who had never sounded like a child. _He is almost as tall as me now_, Keigo observes. _He is shivering. He has just lost a father._

"Give me your hand," he says abruptly, and although the words take Ryoma by surprise, for he did not expect such an answer, he gives his right hand up, willingly, taking out his hand from the warmth of his pocket. Keigo shakes his own hand out of his warmth, and they are both not wearing gloves. He takes the smaller hand and grasps it. It is hard and cold and it does not seem that Keigo could ever warm it. But he grips it tighter all the more, and although Ryoma grimaces, he does not wiggle free.

He cannot say to the boy, _I do not know. What should you do? What do we do at times like this? I wish I knew_. Instead, he focuses on the present, he focuses on what they do not have to do at this moment.

"You could wait here until all the reporters have gone," he says, "I think one of them is still lurking around the gates. Horrid people."

Ryoma finally lets out a laugh that does not sound like the echoes of hysteria. "Horrid," he agrees, and laughs again, and Keigo thinks, looking at their hands, entwined and together, _this is still useless, flesh is useless, words are useless, and now, what is left? _

His heart thumps.

000

Yuushi asked him, When did you love the boy?

He forgets the content or context relevant to that particular conversation. He only knows that he had answered in a dismissive manner and later brooded over that question and the answer disturbed him far more than he liked to admit.

He had first realized that he loved the boy at the front of a blazing fire and hours after Nanjiroh's death, when the boy was about to fall apart and Keigo had stood by so near and was unable to do anything. Thinking, helpless, _I love him_, and thought almost instantly afterwards, _but that does not matter because that would not save him now. _

His combination of love and helplessness. It will damn them both someday.

Fin.


End file.
